One place that I didn’t think about going for chicken wings on this flighty tour is The 50’s Diner. As a rule of thumb, I’ve found that diners usually don’t have very good chicken wings. Every time I’ve had them in a diner they’ve always just been fried chicken wings and kind of bland. Well, when I relaunched the MBIP blog back in June, I ran into 50’s Diner owner, Scott Senti and he told me they have a special chicken wing recipe that has a cult following here in Peoria. We’ve enjoyed the 50’s Diner signature sandwich, The Loosey Sandwich and we went there on our tenderloin tour, so now let’s go and sample the chicken wings there and see what this cult following is enjoying.

Off we go on a partly cloudy day, which is halfway shielding us from that nasty sunshine, which I hate so much! Why oh why can’t it just be a permanent midnight out there, I guess that’s just asking too freaking much. Sheesh!

So now it’s time to make an executive decision on where to do that aforementioned sitting...

We could grab a booth over here by the front windows...but it’s a little bright over there, let’s keep looking.

There’s more booths over here, but the way people are sitting on the outer edge of the booths is really bothering me. They should scoot in, it looks weird the way they’re sitting on the outer side, like they’re planning something nasty and need to make a quick exit, stage left. Okay, I’ve been standing here too long and obsessing over this, time to...

Just go and sit at the counter, I like it best over there anyway.

And through the miracle of these here interwebs, Emily magically appears with a vanilla milkshake! Love her smile! She told me she's been working here for over two years, nice to meet her!

They don’t serve beer at the 50’s Diner, but this vanilla shake is so delicious it almost makes up for the lack of suds in here! Although I knew coming here there was no beer on the menu, so it wasn’t a shock like when I went to this place a few weeks ago.

Our order has been placed, so let’s take a little look around in here. There’s movie stars, cars and...

Elvis, a guitar and electronic TV dinners are hung with joy over here.

I’ve got a feeling the chicken wings are just about ready to be served, let’s bolt back over to our counter seat and see what’s what over there.

Scott’s out of the kitchen and seated next to us and that can only mean one thing...

Chicken wing time! Emily has the order in hand and is still flashing that award-winning smile I love so much!

The wings look really good and there’s a bowl of hot sauce to dunk them in. Perfect!

I’ve got two of them on this plate to begin the cooling process and normally I’d have another beer at this point, but there’s no beer in here, so...

Let’s just dig in! Wow, these are really tasty wings. Scott told me they’re lightly battered and deep-fried and the wings are seasoned before they batter them. They’re really crispy and have a nice spicy zing to them, even without dipping them in that bowl of hot sauce. I can see why they’ve got a cult following.

As good as they are without any sauce, I thought I’d give them a dunk and try out the hot sauce here...

Holy shitballs, this really makes them good! I asked Scott if the sauce was made in-house and he told me it’s a special hot sauce he recently discovered...

Now it’s time for the weekly bones and napkins shot! Thanks to Emily, Scott and everyone at the 50’s Diner for a great chicken wing lunch! And if you’d like to try these wings with beer, stop over at Johnny Vigs which is located close by in The Metro Centre on Friday evenings. Scott says they put out a large plate of these around 5PM to start off their weekend, so you should check that out! We’ll see you all tomorrow!

Chicken Wing Rating

Three and a half Wings guitar picks. These are really tasty chicken wings. Deep-fried, crispy and they have a nice little kick to them even if you don’t dip them into the hot sauce. However I recommend you dip them and then they’re really fantastic!